Congressman wants Navy ship to honor Harvey Milk

A SoCal congressman has an idea for the Navy: They should name one of their big, gray ships after Harvey Milk, a Navy vet.

Rep. Bob Filner (D-San Diego) wrote a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta encouraging the Navy to name the next “appropriate” ship after Milk — the first openly gay San Francisco supervisor elected to office — who was assassinated in 1978.

“This action would be a fitting tribute to Mr. Milk’s support for equality, an ideal exemplified in the military’s recent repeal of its former ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy,” Filner, who is also running to be the mayor of San Diego, wrote to Panetta and Ray Mabus, the secretary of the Navy.

According to tradition, Mabus personally decides what new Navy ships should be named.

Quite frankly, we at City Insider think it would be a fitting tribute. This way, the sailors can, as the Village People famously said, “find pleasure, search the world for treasure, learn science (and) technology,” while “sailing the seven seas” on an aptly named vessel.